Joe Strout wrote:
Time will tell how many of the X Prize contenders will remain in the
business once the prize is won.

Who cares? You have missed the point entirely.

It certainly does matter. If they fold en masse, then investors could
prove skittish. (Look at all the companies that folded!)

The point is this: things have changed already, and they'll change even
more on Monday morning. Suborbital tourism is no longer something to
cause starry-eyed dreamers from the lunatic fringe to get laughed out of
a venture capitalist's office. It something real and undeniably achievable.

Hopefully somebody other than Rutan remains in business to buy ships
from though. It doesn't matter if it's Boeing or Scaled, a single
manufacturer market is a Bad Thing. Competition, between suppliers to
grab market share, and between operators to get the best craft, is
what we want, not a smaller scale status quo.

Space travel is no longer something so expensive and hazardous that only
major world goverments can do it; any company with appropriate expertise
and modest amounts of investment can do it too.

Hopefully investors can be found that are interested in space travel,
and understand the difference between space travel and sub orbital
amusement park rides.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.